Over 10 Million Players?

Smasherx74 · June 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

IvorySamoan wrote: »

Um, Bethesda just confirmed it?

They were at 8.5 sold units half way through last year, so they've sold 1.5 million since then: super impressive, going to hit 12 I reckon soon with Morrowind just releasing and getting pretty great word of mouth.

ESO, actually now looking like that WoW killer it was touted to be so long ago lol.

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak. No game will ever reach those numbers again, or get even close.

That's a bold statement that can only increasingly be proven false in the future.

Lylith · June 2017

timidobserver wrote: »

It's advertising, what do you expect? Assuming you have ever even ate at McDonalds, how often do you get a burger that looks like the one on TV.

try whataburger.

MaxwellC · June 2017

Lol that trailer is so deceptive its not even funny; It would be more accurate if there were tons of loading screens, people teleporting when doing a gap closer in any form of PvP content, and empty Imperial city zones as they are completely irrelevant.

Shadzilla · June 2017

MaxwellC wrote: »

Lol that trailer is so deceptive its not even funny; It would be more accurate if there were tons of loading screens, people teleporting when doing a gap closer in any form of PvP content, and empty Imperial city zones as they are completely irrelevant.

Well said.

zyk · June 2017

I believe that ESO is successful, but not as an MMO. I think the majority of its players are invisible to the enthusiast community because they keep to themselves and play ESO like an episodic single player game.

Roovin · June 2017

Every game posts numbers like this...

IwakuraLain42 · June 2017

EnglishTea123 wrote: »

I don't mean to brag, but I still have 10 million active customers for my lemonade stand that I started 10 years ago. lol.

Okay but really... just as some others have said, if there were even 500k active players, Rawl'Kha would be just as full, if not more because vet zones and normal zones are combined, as before. New players may think that it's crowded right now, but, boy, Rawl'Kha was PACKED way-back-when. Can't believe some people would actually believe ZoS' statement claiming that they have 10 million active players. Like... really? Guess I'll never know why they reduced PvP pop limit, cut down on PvP campaigns, and combined vet zones and normal zones. If ZoS actually fixed things that needed, and still need, fixing, maybe then the game could have at least one million active players... but nah they thought we needed housing and warden before anything else.

You don't see these number because they reduced the number of players in each shard, mostly to combat lag issues. Now way what you see in the towns is the current population.

MLGProPlayer · June 2017

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Roovin wrote: »

I like how over half the posts in this thread are veiled attempts to bash ZOS.

This game is as healthy as ever.

Hopefully more healthy then ever. Since launch we have had major direction changes. Major content reworks. And major changes in pricing. That does not scream a game in great health. Unless you are of the mind that the game has always been really really healthy and ZOS just decided they were not getting enough of your money.

Im of the mind ZOS is not out to screw us on purpose(usually), so the changes lead me to think the game has never been as successful as they hoped. So here is hoping the game is MORE successful then ever.

The ESO subreddit daily population jumped 4x since Morrowind came out (and it hasn't gone down yet).

MLGProPlayer · June 2017

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f047ys3v3n wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak. No game will ever reach those numbers again, or get even close.

I totally disagree with this statement. Not only could ESO have reached these numbers, I think that it was legitimately expected to bury them.

Reasons

1) While great competition in MMO's exists now on the PC there is almost no competition on the console. ESO was aimed primarily at that market, a market that is far larger than the PC market today which is larger than the PC market was when WoW set those numbers. In other words, ESO faced no more competition than WoW and had a larger potential market.

2) ESO brought far more potential legacy players to the game from the previous ESO hits such as Skyrim than WoW whose predecessor was far less popular.

3) ESO had a massively larger budget.

4) Free to Play, micro transactions, and the like have proven far superior revenue models and thereby boosted both revenues and player bases.

What ESO got right:

1) Excellent, varied, and compelling quests and lore.
2) Excellent visuals, updated graphics and the like.
3) Limited size ability bars and a lower threshold to entry.

What ESO got wrong:

1) The game was not even close to ready at launch. Console, the target audience, as not ready for a full year and what should have been the launch game engine was not really done for 1.7 years, the time ESO+ with dynamic zone scaling and better grouping was finished.
2) ZOS pulled the funding plug in September of launch year with massive layoffs that basically killed timely development and balance capability as well as cost them many devs who actually knew how some of the code worked and would have been able to fix things more efficiently.
3) Endgame PVE has always been small in size, had rather weak rewards, generally poor and un-engaging mechanics, and has often not even been scaled to max level. Basically, little development effort has been put into it.
4) The main PVP experience proved a bit too ambitious and so has been plagued by lag and instability problems.
5) PVP and PVE balance have never been decoupled. Plenty of games have proven that PVP and PVE can never be balanced together. ESO's insistence on doing this is ignorant, idiotic, and they have paid the price in lack of balance in either.
6) The champion system created massive imbalance and a huge barrier to entry. It did everything we said it would and was at least the magnitude of disaster we predicted.
7) ESO's balance has often involved uber changes such as removal of dynamic ulti-regen, removal of regen while blocking, or an across the board 30 or so % decrease in resources. Balance steps of this magnitude basically just wreck everyone's builds and remove any reset any balance previously achieved. People hate them, they accomplish little, and give the impression of laziness and ineptitude.
8) Badly behaving players doing things such as running cheat engine, item duplication, spam reporting, and other exploits have never been dealt with sufficiently leaving an inmates are running the asylum vibe.
9) The game was not free to play at launch. It clearly should have both to retain players and because not doing so left a very bad impression on players who paid for most of a year with all those assurances that it was a subscription game.
10) ZOS have never ever been honest or open with players about what it is doing, what it plans to do, or why it does some things. Being left in the dark and fed *** sandwiches gets real old.

In conclusion, ESO not only could have bested WoW's peak numbers but, if run with only average competency, should have been expected too. It was not run with even average competency from the funding decisions (presumably made by the board) to the progression, balance and mechanics decisions. ESO deserves the infamy it has gained in some circles. Given the magnitude of advantages, and therefore expectations, it had, it's showing has been pitiful. ESO is like Star Wars Episode 1. Sure, it made money, but it was nevertheless a massive failure given the legitimate expectations. #WrobelforJarJar.

No other game has come even close to hitting those figures. ESO had a pretty lowkey release. It most certainly wasn't expected to "bury" those numbers.

GW2 had FAR more launch hype than ESO and it still barely managed to attract even a fraction of the players needed to get to 12 million.

WoW was as much a social fad as it was a video game. The fad has since passed.

DemonDruaga · June 2017

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back. New players come, expitience the broken rng, and leave.

malchior · June 2017

Kinda like 10million people went through my shop door, only 5 bought something.

Elsonso · June 2017

zyk wrote: »

I believe that ESO is successful, but not as an MMO. I think the majority of its players are invisible to the enthusiast community because they keep to themselves and play ESO like an episodic single player game.

True, but ESO has never been a traditional MMO. Even ZOS has said that this is intended.

DemonDruaga wrote: »

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back.

Which is, oddly enough, about the size of the world that you can see at any given moment. The game tries to place you with people who you are associated with. If you spend time in guild chat, that feeling will be reinforced.

When I travel the world, a lot of the people I see in the game come from the pool of 1700 players that share a guild with me.

If you went to Rawl'kha and saw every player that was currently there, rather than just the few that you are allowed to see, your computer/console would start looking for a new home. Once the smoke cleared.

Enslaved · June 2017

MaxwellC wrote: »

Lol that trailer is so deceptive its not even funny; It would be more accurate if there were tons of loading screens, people teleporting when doing a gap closer in any form of PvP content, and empty Imperial city zones as they are completely irrelevant.

+1 LOL

reiverx · June 2017

As much as I like ESO, it does feel like it's a game of what ifs.

Skjoldur · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

1) While great competition in MMO's exists now on the PC there is almost no competition on the console. ESO was aimed primarily at that market, a market that is far larger than the PC market today which is larger than the PC market was when WoW set those numbers. In other words, ESO faced no more competition than WoW and had a larger potential market.

I always read claims that the console market is far larger than the PC market. Do you have any numbers?

All I find is the opposite, like here for example: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/pc-market-grew-in-2016-led-by-mobile-and-pc-gaming/

MLGProPlayer · June 2017

DemonDruaga wrote: »

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back. New players come, expitience the broken rng, and leave.

That's because the game uses instances... You can only see a few dozen players on your screen at any given time. The rest are in different instances.

MLGProPlayer · June 2017

Skjoldur wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

1) While great competition in MMO's exists now on the PC there is almost no competition on the console. ESO was aimed primarily at that market, a market that is far larger than the PC market today which is larger than the PC market was when WoW set those numbers. In other words, ESO faced no more competition than WoW and had a larger potential market.

I always read claims that the console market is far larger than the PC market. Do you have any numbers?

All I find is the opposite, like here for example: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/pc-market-grew-in-2016-led-by-mobile-and-pc-gaming/

Consoles are more accessible than gaming PCs. They're cheaper and you don't need to build them. They're also conducive to casual gaming. Simple logic will tell you that the console market is bigger.

zaria · June 2017

EnglishTea123 wrote: »

I don't mean to brag, but I still have 10 million active customers for my lemonade stand that I started 10 years ago. lol.

Okay but really... just as some others have said, if there were even 500k active players, Rawl'Kha would be just as full, if not more because vet zones and normal zones are combined, as before. New players may think that it's crowded right now, but, boy, Rawl'Kha was PACKED way-back-when. Can't believe some people would actually believe ZoS' statement claiming that they have 10 million active players. Like... really? Guess I'll never know why they reduced PvP pop limit, cut down on PvP campaigns, and combined vet zones and normal zones. If ZoS actually fixed things that needed, and still need, fixing, maybe then the game could have at least one million active players... but nah they thought we needed housing and warden before anything else.

500K active would be the same as Final Fantasy so it makes some sense.
Note that some who log in once every week is active, so 10% is active on an regular day is realistic, 20% in prime time. Divide this on 3 platforms. and you end with 30K players on platform prime time.
Rawl'kwa takes a few % as most are other places and it has many instances, same with vivec city.
Rawl and reaper march got more instances around homestead because people complained about lag and long loading times.

Shadzilla · June 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

DemonDruaga wrote: »

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back. New players come, expitience the broken rng, and leave.

That's because the game uses instances... You can only see a few dozen players on your screen at any given time. The rest are in different instances.

Thank god for that. Could not imagine rawl without instances.

KingYogi415 · June 2017

Zos has said each platform has around 300k active users.

Out of 10 mil copies bought sounds about right to me.

Elsonso · June 2017

zaria wrote: »

Rawl'kwa takes a few % as most are other places and it has many instances, same with vivec city.
Rawl and reaper march got more instances around homestead because people complained about lag and long loading times.

People do need to get over the idea that they can estimate active game population by seeing how busy a zone or location, like Rawl'kha, is. My view is that it is like trying to count the number of people in a busy train station, while looking through a toilet paper roll tube. At any given time, you see only a fraction of the population. By the time you complete a full 'survey', the place where you started has changed.

It used to be an idea to count people in banks, then certain crafting locations, then social areas. Today, there are more locations, and the poplarity changes. On top of that, ZOS works to limit how much you can see through that tube.

Shadzilla wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

DemonDruaga wrote: »

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back. New players come, expitience the broken rng, and leave.

That's because the game uses instances... You can only see a few dozen players on your screen at any given time. The rest are in different instances.

Thank god for that. Could not imagine rawl without instances.

It would be insane and unplayable. Such things would set new standards by which "lag" was defined.

Someday, I would really like to know what the historical max population in a particular location (like Davon's Watch, etc) was. I doubt that ZOS even tracks that sort of thing.

zaria · June 2017

lordrichter wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Rawl'kwa takes a few % as most are other places and it has many instances, same with vivec city.
Rawl and reaper march got more instances around homestead because people complained about lag and long loading times.

People do need to get over the idea that they can estimate active game population by seeing how busy a zone or location, like Rawl'kha, is. My view is that it is like trying to count the number of people in a busy train station, while looking through a toilet paper roll tube. At any given time, you see only a fraction of the population. By the time you complete a full 'survey', the place where you started has changed.

It used to be an idea to count people in banks, then certain crafting locations, then social areas. Today, there are more locations, and the poplarity changes. On top of that, ZOS works to limit how much you can see through that tube.

Shadzilla wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

DemonDruaga wrote: »

It feels like there are more or less like 200-300. Where ever I go I see the same endgame players that I saw years back. New players come, expitience the broken rng, and leave.

That's because the game uses instances... You can only see a few dozen players on your screen at any given time. The rest are in different instances.

Thank god for that. Could not imagine rawl without instances.

It would be insane and unplayable. Such things would set new standards by which "lag" was defined.

Someday, I would really like to know what the historical max population in a particular location (like Davon's Watch, etc) was. I doubt that ZOS even tracks that sort of thing.

Yes, I know, you can estimate if its prime or slow time but it also depend how populated your shard is, they can not discard it while its players in it.
Make me wonder if reaper march is an good place for farming mats, most players are in Rawl and population count is probably set lower than most zones as you would have to render more players than in most zones there players are more spread out. An zone without an popular city might have an higher player population so more players out in zone.

Elsonso · June 2017

zaria wrote: »

Yes, I know, you can estimate if its prime or slow time but it also depend how populated your shard is, they can not discard it while its players in it.

I have an interesting observation for you. They apparently have the capability of merging them together. If they can do this, they can probably also split them. These might be entirely virtual zones that can sorted, split, and merged dynamically based on criteria that we cannot see. We would have no idea how often this happens, if it happens at all. Chances are that enough people are always coming and going that it is not necessary. This level of trickery is what makes it such a pain to try to estimate server populations from inside the game.

zaria wrote: »

Make me wonder if reaper march is an good place for farming mats, most players are in Rawl and population count is probably set lower than most zones as you would have to render more players than in most zones there players are more spread out. An zone without an popular city might have an higher player population so more players out in zone.

Hard to say. There will certainly be more resources for the picking in a zone with 200 players, most of them in one location, than a zone with 500 players all spread out. That is assuming that they have not engineered a way to split zones in a manner that virtually spreads out players in high concentration areas, while combining players in low concentration areas. I have never studied Reaper's March to see if there is trickery happening when entering or leaving Rawl'kha during peak hours to see if the people in the world change based on where in the zone I am. My assumption is that a zone is a zone and there is no trickery, so I never bothered to look.

MaGicBush · June 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

1mirg wrote: »

Yes, those numbers are real. They are combining the consoles and pc players though, which begs the question on how many pc and console players their really are but still, that is the real deal. There is 10 million players. Why do you think you can always find a toon in a zone questing/ exploring?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak.

Active Subscribers does not equal active players. Most "subscribers" for mmo's like WoW tend to just leave their subscriptions running long after they stopped playing the game. I met alot of friends offline that did and still do, exactly that with that game.

Active player numbers is a different story but surprise, surprise. Blizzard stopped releasing "active player numbers" long ago. Unlike FFXIv and their census.

Nobody leaves a $15/month subscription running for a service they no longer use, unless they've died and didn't have a chance to cancel.

I beg to differ. My friend does this all the time. He uses his moms cc and she doesnt care either lol.

Animal_Mother · June 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

1mirg wrote: »

Yes, those numbers are real. They are combining the consoles and pc players though, which begs the question on how many pc and console players their really are but still, that is the real deal. There is 10 million players. Why do you think you can always find a toon in a zone questing/ exploring?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

WoW had 12 million SUBSCRIBERS (aka active players) at its peak.

Active Subscribers does not equal active players. Most "subscribers" for mmo's like WoW tend to just leave their subscriptions running long after they stopped playing the game. I met alot of friends offline that did and still do, exactly that with that game.

Active player numbers is a different story but surprise, surprise. Blizzard stopped releasing "active player numbers" long ago. Unlike FFXIv and their census.

Nobody leaves a $15/month subscription running for a service they no longer use, unless they've died and didn't have a chance to cancel.

Call me "Nobody".

I'll just up and leave for no reason other that to collect crowns. Start up, get bored (or pissed off), leave. Repeat. Been gone as long as 4 months at a time.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2017

Skjoldur wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

1) While great competition in MMO's exists now on the PC there is almost no competition on the console. ESO was aimed primarily at that market, a market that is far larger than the PC market today which is larger than the PC market was when WoW set those numbers. In other words, ESO faced no more competition than WoW and had a larger potential market.

I always read claims that the console market is far larger than the PC market. Do you have any numbers?

All I find is the opposite, like here for example: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/pc-market-grew-in-2016-led-by-mobile-and-pc-gaming/

console market in the large scope is bigger. because you have several different consoles with varying degrees of what these wad economists and census takers consider gaming. remember they consider the 4 year old with a wii controller playing tennis a gamer in the market. it constitutes every genre in that and the bulk of the console market is the COD player or that type of gaming. But if you take the whole market of gaming altogether the PC gaming market consistently is pumping money out in large amounts. We buy hardware, tons and tons of digital BS like ZOS sells . and the MMO market is predominantly a PC market by far more people on the PC play MMO's hands down. What the issue is you have corporations that act as publishers now dictating to Development teams of how they want the game built. its why we have these burn out churn games with no long term communities extremely shallow game systems that are easy to pick up but get boring in less then 90 days. Then the development team is fired post launch and a bunch of cheaper maintenance teams are hired to pump out holly hobbie easy bake oven content to milk the churn base people interested in the IP not the game that is the MMO genre in a nutshell post 2008.

GrumpyDuckling · June 2017

KingYogi415 wrote: »

Zos has said each platform has around 300k active users.

Out of 10 mil copies bought sounds about right to me.

@KingYogi415

Source?

GrumpyDuckling · June 2017

KingYogi415 wrote: »

Zos has said each platform has around 300k active users.

Out of 10 mil copies bought sounds about right to me.

@KingYogi415

Evidence, please.

MrSaxon · June 2017

Of the nine or so people who started playing with me toward the end of last year, around seven continue to play regularly. I've not joined a Guild but the world seems pretty packed to me. One of these days I'll try Endgame but I'm having too much fun levelling different characters to 50 at the moment.

ProfesseurFreder · June 2017

@GrumpyDuckling -- "Evidence! Source!"

-- Why do you care? Why is this thread still active? Why are people still debating this?

-- What in the heck difference does it make?

Is your life so empty that you have nothing else to do but debate this figure?

There's a whole boatload of people on the forums who seem to have no other goal in life than to tilt at the ZOS windmill, contest EVERY statement they make, and generally attempt to undermine everything they do. For Vivec's sake get a life and allow the forums to be supportive and positive again. Arguing about THIS NUMBER is bout the second or third dumbest thing I've seen here.